Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)

To reiterate, the Animal Health and Welfare Act provides that compensation to owners of animals may be payable if a cull of those animals is directed. It is specific. It has clear criteria, and rightly so. If a flock owner or farmer is being asked to remove their entire herd or flock for broader national reasons in the best interests of stopping the spread of disease, that is the most important thing. We do all of that as well as a mandatory biodiversity measures and housing measures to get ourselves back to a disease-free status as soon as possible. The 3 km restriction zone and 10 km surveillance zone remain in place for three months after a positive case. At that point, we can get back to having disease-free status in that area. We are lucky that the vast majority of our product that is exported goes to countries that accept regionalisation. They will only ban the export of product from that restriction zone and surveillance zone, not for the whole country. Some markets ban it for the whole country and do not differentiate. That is a broader challenge. The compensation model that is set out in the Act from 12 years ago is very much targeted at those flock owners.

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